Adolf Lüderitz

Franz Adolf Eduard Lüderitz (16 July 1834 – end of October 1886) was a German merchant and the founder of German South West Africa, Imperial Germany's first colony. The coastal town of Lüderitz is named after him.

Lüderitz was born on 16 July 1834 in Bremen to tobacco merchant Adolf Lüderitz and his wife Wilhelmine. He had one younger brother who later became his assistant. After graduating from school Lüderitz attended the Handelsschule (Merchant's Gymnasium) in Bremen and then worked as an intern in his father's business.

Between 1854 and 1859 he travelled among tobacco bourses in North America. He took up a position in Mexico, but the trader soon went bankrupt. He then bought a tobacco farm himself which was shortly thereafter destroyed in the wake of a revolution. Bankrupt, he returned to Germany in 1859 and entered his father's business. His 1866 marriage to Emilie Louise (born 1836) made him financially independent. Three children were born to them. When Lüderitz's father died in 1878 he took over the tobacco business.

In 1881, he established a factory at Lagos in British West Africa, but this enterprise was unsuccessful. Still interested in setting foot in Africa, he and fellow Bremen merchant Heinrich Vogelsang decided to found a German colony in South West Africa, which had by then not been claimed by any colonial power. They intended to offer an alternative to German settlers, who at that time were leaving their motherland in droves for North America, where they were no longer under German influence.

In May 1883 Lüderitz bought the anchorage at Angra Pequena and the land 5 miles (8.0 km) around it from Captain Josef Frederiks II of Bethanie for 100£ in gold and 200 rifles. Three months later, on 25 August, Frederiks sold Lüderitz a stretch of land 140 kilometres (87 mi) wide, between the Orange River and Angra Pequena, for £500 and 60 rifles. Lüderitz named the sum of all his South West African land acquisitions Lüderitzland.

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